Neuroscience

Cellular connections found between nervous and immune systems

The nervous and immune systems have long been thought to be separate entities in the body, but new research has uncovered a direct cellular interaction between the two. Scientists from Harvard Medical School, the Broad Institute ...

Neuroscience

Reprogramming brain cells enables flexible decision-making

Greetings without handshakes, mandatory masks in trains, sneezing into elbow crooks—the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically illustrates how important it can be for humans to shed habitual behaviors and to learn new ones. Animals, ...

Neuroscience

Real neurons are noisy. Can neural implants figure that out?

If human eyes came in a package, it would have to be labeled "Natural product. Some variation may occur." Because the million-plus retinal ganglion cells that send signals to the human brain for interpretation don't all perform ...

Neuroscience

Immune cells sculpt circuits in the brain

Immune cells play an unexpected role in fine-tuning the brain's neural circuits, according to research published in September, 2020 in Neuron. The immune cells that reside there, known as microglia, not only protect the brain ...

Neuroscience

Targeting a chronic pain gateway could bring relief

Something like a quarter of the world's population suffers from chronic pain at some point in their lives. As opposed to acute pain—for example, the feeling after hitting your finger with a hammer—chronic pain may not ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

How COVID-19 causes smell loss

Temporary loss of smell, or anosmia, is the main neurological symptom and one of the earliest and most commonly reported indicators of COVID-19. Studies suggest it better predicts the disease than other well-known symptoms ...

Neuroscience

Mapping the brain's sensory gatekeeper

Many people with autism experience sensory hypersensitivity, attention deficits, and sleep disruption. One brain region that has been implicated in these symptoms is the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), which is believed ...

Medical research

Scientists find a simpler way to make sensory hearing cells

Scientists from the USC Stem Cell laboratories of Neil Segil and Justin Ichida are whispering the secrets of a simpler way to generate the sensory cells of the inner ear. Their approach uses direct reprogramming to produce ...

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